“We can’t not study it.”
He showed no mercy. “Tell your doctors good-bye, then.”
Hazel eyes narrowed menacingly. “What do you suggest we do?”
“Lock them up, isolate them, and observe. But do not take blood, do not send people into their cells. Meanwhile, A.I.R. will hunt and kill the Schön without spreading the virus.”
Estap snorted. “You expect me to sit back and do nothing? When A.I.R. has done such a poor job?”
Jaxon pierced him with a dark smile. “You haven’t done any better. Sir.”
Another bout of silence ensued.
A tactic, Jaxon knew. He’d used it often enough himself during interrogations as a means of making his target uncomfortable, intimidated.
How many times had Mishka been here? Had Estap berated her? Called her names? Hit her?
No reaction.
“I’ll be honest with you, agent,” Estap said, finally breaking. “There is one way to study the infected blood.”
“And that is?”
“Le’Ace.”
At her name, Jaxon’s stomach clenched. No f**king reaction. “Oh, really?”
“She’s immune to everything.”
Calm. “Are you sure?”
“Sure enough. There’s always a chance for failure, though.”
“You’d be willing to sacrifice her?”
A shrug.
He’s testing me. Gauging my responses. “Whatever you think is best.” Bastard. You are so going to die.
“She’s a machine, agent, no better than an animal.”
I will not use the knife hidden inside my belt, I will not use the knife hidden inside my belt. Not yet…
A slow smile lifted Estap’s lips, as if he knew Jaxon’s every thought. “My great-grandfather was part of the team that created her, you know. Each of the five scientists used pieces of themselves to form her DNA, as well as machines, aliens, and animals, as I mentioned. She was to be the first in a new breed of warriors. A killer, a seducer. Their winning ace.”
Their puppet.
Meditating didn’t help; breathing didn’t help. Jaxon still wanted to attack. Mishka had never really known kindness. As a child, her smiles had probably been snuffed out, her humor treated as a liability, and love deemed forbidden. From birth, she’d been isolated, trained, and used.
What would she have wanted to be if she’d been raised by loving parents? A doctor? Painter? Candy maker? Did she allow herself to dream of something more, something better? Or had she given up on independence completely? Probably. She never spoke of it, not even as an afterthought.
He couldn’t return the childhood she’d lost, but he could give her a future free of enslavement. He would. And he would love her, all the days of his life.
Love.
He loved her, he realized. He wanted her with him every damn minute of every damn day. He wanted her to talk to him, share her feelings, listen to his, hold him, delight in him the way he delighted in her.
From the beginning, he’d been drawn to her as he’d never been to another. She captivated him, enthralled him, made him so hot the desire was like a fever. Her happiness came before his own; her life came before his own.
She was a part of him. A part he could not live without, a part more important than his heart or his lungs. How it happened, he didn’t know. But every breathless sigh, every heated glance and courageous word out of her mouth had pulled him deeper and deeper under her spell.
He’d leave his job, his friends, give up every penny in his accounts if she asked it of him. Willingly, happily. More than that, he would slay her dragons. Again willingly, happily.
“Are you listening?” Estap asked him.
What had he missed? “Continue,” he said, not really answering.
The senator gave him a mulish frown. “They added the chip when she was six years old and began exhibiting signs of disobedience. As she grew and their control over her strengthened, the five fathers, if you will, wanted to use her in different ways. They fought over her, and one by one they died. Accidentally, of course. My father took over her care. Still with me, Agent Tremain?”
He didn’t trust himself to speak, so he nodded.
“Good. Bear with me just a little longer, and you’ll understand why I’m telling you all of this. You see, her records were destroyed, leaving no evidence that she’d ever existed. But in the destruction, a chance to re-create or fix her was destroyed, too. Now do you understand?”
“No. Spell it out for me.”
“You want to kill me. Don’t try to deny it, I can tell. Well, guess what? Kill me and you kill Le’Ace.”
“What do you mean?” Each word was measured, clipped.
“The chip in her brain.”
Jaxon nodded. “Yes, go on.” His teeth gnashed together. There’d been too much eagerness in his voice.
“Well, the control chip is inside me. I had it implanted a few years ago when I realized she was planning my downfall. The moment my life is extinguished, hers will be, too. Understand now?”
Oh, yes. He did. Fucking bastard. There was no doubt in Jaxon’s mind that the senator had done what he claimed. What better hiding place? What better mode of control? A red haze fell over his vision.
Slaying Mishka’s dragons would slay her. He popped his jaw, mind already churning with other possibilities.
One way or another, Estap would fall. Only the semantics had to change.
“She’s beautiful, so I understand why you desire her,” the senator continued, unconcerned by the murderous rage building inside of Jaxon. “But she’s a whore and a cold-blooded—”
The rest of the sentence ended on a pained gasp. Jaxon had jumped to his feet, flew over the desk, and was now choking the life from the bastard. His fingers were squeezing the man’s windpipe so tightly the muscles were spasming against his palms, the bones groaning.
Tanned skin leeched of color, and Estap’s arms flapped for an anchor. His eyes bugged.
“She’s a better person than you’ll ever be.”
“You’ll…kill…her…”
Fuck! Panting with the force of his fury, Jaxon released the senator and stepped away. He held his hands up, as if in surrender. Control was his best friend right now.
Estap sank back into his chair, but he had to grip the edge of the desk to keep from sliding all the way to the ground. He hunched over, sucking in labored breath after labored breath. “You…bastard.” Hate glared up at him. “You’ll pay for that.”